A monk claimed demons helped build the Dome of the Rock at night.

Evidence

Anastasius tells that “thirty years ago” he had been in Jerusalem and had seen the Egyptians clearing away rubble from the Temple Esplanade; at night, he claims, he saw demons helping them. He felt it necessary to write this down, he says, because some people say that what is being built there now (i.e., the Dome of the Rock mosque) is the Temple of God. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 304

Categorization

• SHARE: The detail that a Christian monk saw demons as the night-shift builders of the Dome of the Rock is a vivid nugget for anyone into early Islamicate-Jewish-Christian encounters.